blackshoe, on 2015-January-21, 13:05, said:
Maybe. But government is insatiable, and OPM (other people's money) is its main source of sustenance.
It really, really annoys me that people spout this nonsense, as if 'government' is some kind of alien parasitical entity that does nothing but take from the deserving (i.e. the wealthy) and give to the undeserving (i.e. the poor, the disabled, foreigners, etc)
Government is us! Humans organize, deliberately or not, into groups. One of the major ways in which we do this is territorial, although there are many others, and indeed often problems that arise within a group arise because members of that group see themselves at least in part as members of other groups as well. Thus tribal conflict will arise when many in the population see themselves as members of a tribe rather than as citizens of a country...Rwanda is but one clear instance of this.
Those societies that have arranged themselves based on territory will need some sort of organization to maintain coherency in the society. Societies need rules to preserve internal relationships, and to maintain integrity in the face of other societies, including those that do not organize primarily on territorial lines. Thus 'internationalist' movements, such as the early days of communism, attempted, in pre-WWI days, to create an international society of workers, where solidarity with class was supposed to transcend nationalism, and (it was hoped) render war impossible.
That organization has to be made up of people. Those people, especially those who do the actual work, need to be paid. When you take farmers away from the land and make them into an army, that army (unless it is the Chinese army, lol) will not likely own or operate factories or other means of wealth creation. Diplomats are similar.
As societies become ever larger and ever more complex, the complexity and size, in absolute terms, of the non-wealth-creating aspects of government grow.
When we as a society decide that it is a bad idea to let unscrupulous citizens poison our foods, or peddle sham medications, or take shortcuts on airplane maintenance and so on, we need to train and pay people to protect us. Those people can't produce wealth and still do their job, so we need to find the money to pay for them, just as we do for soldiers, Judges, diplomats and so on.
When we look at how to pay, it is fair to conclude that those who benefit the most from the maintenance of order, and from the creation of circumstances permitting the accumulation of great wealth, ought to pay proportionally more than those who, for whatever reason (often related to their choice of parent....anyone who chooses to be born to an inner city parent is unlikely to end up with as much money as the far smarter child who chooses to be born into a large trust fund) end up with fewer of the 'benefits' of membership in that society.
Thus the notion of progressive taxation.
When people assert that 'government' is inherently 'bad' they are ignoring the fact that government is how we, as humans, organize ourselves. Almost without exception those who argue that government is bad ignore the (usually substantial) benefits they gain from having that government.
Are there dangers that governments can become organizations which focus more on the survival and growth of government for the sake of government, rather than for the sake of the society it is intended to conserve and benefit? Well, government is made up of humans, and humans do have a tendency to be selfish, both personally and on behalf of their tribe...and bureaucrats can come to see the bureaucracy as their main 'tribe'.
Thus having elected representatives oversee government is a good safety mechanism. Unfortunately, in the US in particular, the electorate seems especially ignorant of basic concepts of societal organization, and the republicans, and other right wing individuals, have created this myth that 'government' is 'other' and thus to be feared and hated.
The results of this are easy to see. Look at the consequences of de-regulation of the financial industry starting in the early 2000's.
Note that the American electorate has an incredibly short memory, because they have now elected a Congress that is determined to undo the regulatory changes brought in after 2008.
If we could all see that government is us, then I'd expect that voting rates would go up, as people realized that both they as individuals and government as a concept are part of a civilized society.
It is no surprise to see that in the US we have both the greatest level of dislike for government and the lowest voter participation in the western world. It is equally no surprise to see that in the US, we see the greatest growth in wealth inequality as well.
The Koch brothers and their ilk seem to know very well that the best way to preserve and enhance their wealth is to dumb down the electorate and to make them see government as an evil force. No society can regulate the egregious acts of the most powerful without a strong government that looks to the majority of the people, rather than to those who fund their election campaigns. When the voters are alienated from government, the rich and powerful call the shots.
Libertarians play right into the hands of such people, by fostering a fantastical view of the nature of the human animal.
At least, that's the way I see it
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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